Holiday Question of the Day:

According to the Code of Jewish Law, what is the maximum height a kosher menorah can be?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: the Jesse Tree

The Legend of the Hanukah Bush

Many people think that the Hanukah Bush is a new invention, as if a bunch of Jewish kids with Christian friends whined to their parents that their friends all had cool trees with twinkle lights and decorations and gifts piled up the ceiling and all they had were some itty bitty candles, a top and some chocolate coins, so their parents made up the Hanukah Bush so they could have greenery, twinkle lights and decorations too. But, that is not true; the story of the Hanukah Bush is as old a Hanukah itself. It all started after the Macabee’s Revolt won back the Temple. As we mentioned earlier the Greeks had taken over the place and used it for their own temple, so the place was littered with statues of Zeus, Apollo, Venus and Pluto and covered with pigs’ blood, rabbits, bat guano, and lobsters.(How they got lobsters in the middle of the desert, we have no idea.) The shops on the outside had all been changed to bacon cheeseburger stands and leper whorehouses. When the Jewish leaders saw this 5 had a heart attack, and 3 invented Yiddish because they needed two languages to begin to explain how they felt. A quick search of the areas not covered in unclean things revealed 1 small jar of oil that was OK and that it would take at least 8 days to repurify the Temple. At this point the group divided into two camps about how to fix the problem. One group felt that they had worked so hard to get the Temple back, that no matter what they were going to fix it. The other group thought that the important thing was that they got the Temple back and could now follow all the rules of Judaism, which included not touching unclean things, and so the only thing to do was burn everything inside the Temple (excluding the Ark [hopefully].) by letting it dry up and setting a brush firer outside of the Temple and if that didn’t work it would only take a few generations to build a new one. Neither group could convince the other group to join their group, so they decided to each work on their idea. So the first group started cleaning out everything and the second group started finding kindling. As you know the first group was faster. But in honor of both groups’ efforts each year at Hanukah they lit the menorah and had a Hanukah Bush. That is until the Romans came around. As you may know many early European groups thought that various trees were sacred to their gods, so because one of the underlining laws of Judaism is “Don’t Act like the Pagans!” all the Rabbis agreed that they could no longer have the Hanukah Bush. After the removal of the Hanukah Bush and then the decision that the story of Hanukah wouldn’t be put in the Bible, the holiday quickly became a very minor holiday celebrated by very few people, until at the beginning of the last century when a Rabbi studying history happened upon stories of early Hanukah celebrations and found it oddly similar to how Christmas was then being celebrated with trees, candles, small gifts, and religious services. He then started working on spreading this way of celebrating Hanukah in the hopes of fostering love and understanding between Christians and Jews. And that is the way the modern Hanukah Bush came about. – F

Is it real?

We received some comments reasontly that made us wonder: 1. are people actually reading this blog, & 2. are people having problems telling which postings are true, which are completely made up and which one’s are B.S.? As far as the 1st question YAHHHHHHH!!! People are reading this. And we welcome your comments. As far as the 2nd question we are trying a new coding system to some articles. Completely true stories will be ended with a T at the end. Stories we made up using no to little factual information will be labeled F. Stories that are mostly true, but either arranged in a misleading way or have vastly untrue information in them, much like any paper you ever wrote in school (quick, I need 1 more page, lets say that cows naturally hate red because they are red meat and are not cannibals. . . I’ll make up some web site sources.) will be labeled BS, because we were B.S.ing it. -T

Holiday Question of the Day:

This “tree” is found in the Gospel of Matthew and is named after the father of the 2nd king of Israel.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: St. Francis, and yes the patron saint of animals used real animals but, most likely not real people.

Holiday Question of the Day:

Who is noted as being first to recreate the manger scene, starting the tradition of the crèche or nativity found in homes and churches?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Paul Newman, Goldie Hawn, Harrison Ford, Lenny Kravitz and Courtney Love.

Holiday Question of the Day:

In Adam Sandler’s “The Hanukkah Song” (Parts 1 and 2) he list 5 people who are part Jewish, name them.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Josephus

Why is Hanukah 8 Days long?

As Hanukah starts this Friday at sundown (as all Jewish holidays do, as well as some Christian and secular ones [think of any holiday with an Eve. I.e. Christmas, New Years etc.]) We thought we would go over all the reasons why people celebrate it for 8 days.

1st although we stated that as far as we know no one’s Bible has the Miracle of the Oil in it, the Talmud has the story, which is that after the Maccabees won control of the Temple back from the Greeks they found only one days worth of consecrated oil in the Temple, which miraculously lasted for 8 days- how long it took to make more oil suitable for use in the Temple.*

1 Maccabees (which is in many Bibles, but only considered sacred text in Catholic and Orthodox Churches) says that they celebrated the rededication of the altar for eight days, and then decreed that every year they should celebrate it for eight days.*

2 Maccabees (see note on 1 Macabees) states that because they couldn’t celebrate the feast of Booths that year they would celebrate the 8 days of the feast then.

Both the books of Maccabees and the Talmud tell the story of a woman (traditionally called Hannah) and her 7 sons. All 7 sons were killed because they would not eat pork and worship a pagan statue. And then after watching her sons be killed she committed suicide rather then be tortured and killed too. Some say Hanukah is 8 days long to honor them.

*The Temple needed to be rededicated because the Greeks, like most ruling peoples, had set up there religions worship in the same place that the people already there had worshiped. And so the temple contained statues of Greek gods and offerings to them.

Holiday Question of the Day:

This famed Jewish historian was the 1st to call Hanukah “the Feast of Lights.”

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Max

Holiday Question of the Day:

In Dr. Seuss’s “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” what was the Grinch’s dog named?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: “Walking around in Women’s Underwear.”

Holiday Question of the Day:

This song often played around Christmas uses the same music as a Christmas carol and makes references to a singer named after an important person in the Christmas story and a fictional news person disliked by Dan Quail.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: The story of the Miracle of Hanukah is no where in the Jewish Bible, for that matter as far as we know it isn’t in any Christian Bible either. Although Bibles with the Apocrypha contain the books of 1 and 2 Maccabees and have the story of the rededication of the temple, neither talk about the oil lasting for days. (Although there are like 2 or 3 more books of Maccabees, we have never seen them anywhere and don’t know if maybe they have the miracle in them.)

Holiday Question of the Day

In what book of the Jewish Bible is the story of the Miracle of Hanuka?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: (OK Wendsdays question, we had a really busy day, sorry.) “Jingle Bells” which was first called “The One Horse Open Sleigh”.

Holiday Question of the Day

This popular Christmas carol was originally a Thanksgiving song written by a Sunday school teacher in 1857.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: No where, he was really Duke of Bohemia.

The History of the Christmas Tree

St. Boniface, an English monk, was sent on a missionary journey to Germany in 719. There he found that most people there were Pagans, even those that had become Christian had either gone back to their old ways, or because of lack of teaching had combined bits and pieces of the two beliefs together. So he set out to convert the people. One way that he did that was by disproving superstitions rooted in the Pagan beliefs. One of those superstitions was that because the oak was sacred if you cut down an oak you would be cursed by the gods and bad things would happen to you. So he cut down an oak tree. And it destroyed everything it fell on except a fir sapling. (And of course he was fine, or else it really wouldn’t be a good story.) Which people thought was a miracle, (the tree part) so people started planting fir saplings at Christmas time.
Over time people started to bring the small fir trees inside. And for some reason, unknown to us they would hand them upside down from their ceiling beams.
Then one dark night, Martin Luther was walking in the woods before Christmas thinking up a sermon, when he looked up and saw all the stars in the sky. This reminded him of the Christmas star and God’s light. He thought up his sermon and brought home a fir tree for Christmas, but thinking back to the stars he set it upright and added candles to light on it.
Over time various decorations were added to make the tree look nicer or because of symbolic meanings, but the Christmas tree stayed largely a tradition only in Germany in the surrounding countries until the Victorian era. During that time Queen Victoria married Prince Albert (of can fame) who was German. They added the Christmas tree to their holiday festivities and within a few years all of England embraced the Christmas tree as if it had always been a part of their Christmas. And from their it spread to America and around the world.-T

Holiday Question of the Day

“Good King Wenceslas” was king where?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: 1 million acres

Sorry todays was so late, we had some problems getting online today.

Holiday Gift Giving Guide

Here are some ideas for gifts for the cubical dweller in your life. Which we are Weird News B.N.I. do not own, except of course the 1st one. (Hey it’s the law.)

Office Space- This DVD must be owned by anyone who has ever worked in an office or a large company. (Compliance to this will be mandatory starting Jan. 1st 2008.) So if your friend doesn’t own it, they need to.

The Office Space Kit- It contains the things that anyone who has watched Office Space has always wanted including; Flair, TPS Report covers, a “Jump to Conclusions” mat, a sign asking “Is it Good for the Company?” and more.

A Rubik’s Cube – It’s a great way to waste the 8 hours your “working” every day.

A 20 questions game – see above.

Despair, Inc. 2007 Calendar – It contains 12 great Demotiavtor designs. (Think the cheesy picture of a man climbing a mountain at work, only a realistic message.) It also includes less then important dates, like July 9th, 1982 was the theatrical release of TRON. (This is available at www.thinkgeek.com)

Dilbert 2007 Calendar – If they hang it up at work, it’s a cube inside a cube! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Try Rebooting Yourself: A Dilbert Collection BY: Scott Adams- as this is the newest book; they may not have it yet.

Holiday Question of the Day

About how many acres of land is planted with trees for Christmas in North America?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: Red, which is considered the color of luck, happiness, and prosperity.

Advent

Today marks the start of Advent the 4 Sundays leading up to Christmas. As Christmas is on a Monday this year, it will be the shortest advent possible. The Advent wreath started in Germany and has become popular around the world. Traditionally the wreath has 3 purple candles and 1 pink candle often with a large white candle put in the middle, called the Christ candle. Each week a new candle is lit and addition to all candles already lit. Week one is 1 purple candle. Week 2 is 2 purple candles. Week 3 is 2 purple candles and one pink candle. And week 4 is all 4 candles. On Christmas the white candle is lit. In some families and churches there are 4 purple candles, or 4 white candles, or a blue candle instead of the pink candle is used. And the pink or blue candle may be lit last.

For advent prayers click here.
For Protestant advent info, click here.
For a short history of Advent in the Catholic Church, click here.

Holiday Question of the Day

In China, Christmas is called Sheng Dan Jieh or Holy Birth Festival and homes of Christians are decorated with paper chains and pagodas of this color.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: 12 to 15 miles an hour

Holiday Question of the Day

Even with time zones, bad children and non-Christians it is scientifically impossible for a reindeer pulled sleigh to deliver all of Santa’s toys, that is because they only can move this fast pulling a loaded sleigh. . .

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: John Grisham – Who would have thought he could write comedies with no court houses in sight.

Holiday Question of the Day

The film Christmas with the Kranks is based on the 2001 novel Skipping Christmas by this famed author.

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: There is no number listed, as there were three gifts traditionally there were thought to be three givers, also as there were three continents know of, they are traditionally pictured as one being from Africa, one Asia and one Europe.